Putin’s 100,000 men advance: should Selensky give up retaking Bakhmut?

While residents of the port city of Odessa have begun to clean up a few hours after what is now the seventh night of rockets in a row, Russia’s successes in the north of the Donbass are less extenuating. Last week, the Russians gathered some 100,000 soldiers in the area. Part of this monstrous deployment has now managed to cross a river near the small town of Kreminna and advance into hills previously controlled by Ukrainians.

The goal of the advance is likely to be the recapture of the cities of Lyman and Kupjansk, once occupied by Russia and liberated from Ukraine in the fall. Lyman in particular became a symbol of Russian terror after his liberation in October. Several mass graves with executed civilians and numerous torture chambers were found in the city.

Operation recaptures Bachmut in acute danger

The situation is serious, says ETH military expert Marcel Berni (35) to Blick. “In an emergency situation, the Ukrainians would probably have to withdraw troops from Bakhmut, some 50 kilometers to the south, to prevent a Russian breakthrough or retaliate.”

That, in turn, would affect Ukrainian progress in retaking the city occupied by Wagner forces in May. President Volodymyr Zelensky (45) recently described their liberation as a moral duty. In recent weeks, the Ukrainians have made decisive advances north and south of the city. If Selenski now sends his men north, the dream of the liberated Bachmut will be far away again.

The performance of Alexander Lukashenko (68) caused a sensation on Sunday. The Belarusian ruler stopped by his Russian colleague Vladimir Putin (70) in St. Petersburg and complained about the Wagner troops, who recently visited his country. They wanted to “go west” and “take a trip to Poland,” Lukashenko said. After all, they would know where the weapons came from with which the Ukrainians fought against them in Donbass.

Wagner troops pose no threat to NATO

“An empty threat,” says military expert Marcel Berni. “Neither Lukashenko nor the Wagner troops are ready to attack Polish territory and thus a NATO country.” Lukashenko’s statement was probably more of a misguided joke to make himself popular with Putin. “Currently, the Wagner forces in Belarus do not have the necessary mechanized means to launch an offensive against Poland.”

Reportedly, several thousand Wagner fighters are now in Belarus, attending training sessions with the Belarusian army. New satellite images of a Belarusian Wagner camp show numerous transport vehicles, but no heavy artillery.

In Moscow, however, the Wagner brothers still create a tense atmosphere. Your boss Yevgeny Prigozhin (62) remains an unpredictable player in Putin’s ranks. And the Belarusian main camp of its mercenaries is only about 730 kilometers from the Russian capital: much closer than the mercenaries’ Donbass positions were from Moscow.